Lufthansa is the largest airline in Europe based on passengers carried and fleet size. Part owned by the German government until 1997, the company is now owned by private investors and has almost 40,000 employees. The company name was derived from Luft (the German word for "air"), and Hansa (after the Hanseatic League, a powerful medieval trading group). The world's fourth-largest airline, Lufthansa services 18 domestic destinations and 203 international destinations, when combined with it's subsidiaries, Lufthansa is the second-largest passenger airline fleet in the world. Their headquarters are in Cologne, Germany, with their main base at Frankfurt Airport. Lufthansa is a founding member of Star Alliance and the group as a whole employs 117,000 people worldwide and carries over 90 million passengers. The group is currently split into five business areas - Passenger Airline Group, Logistics, MRO, Catering and IT Services.